Exit polls: Voters still don't like either of these candidates

One enduring theme of the campaign has been how unpopular both candidates are, and it's pretty clear that the campaign didn't change the voters' minds about that. Majorities of those interviewed in our NBC News Exit poll have an unfavorable view of each candidate.

About six in 10 voters so far today have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump; only four in 10 has a favorable view, according to NBC News exit poll interviews with those who have voted thus far in the election. Fewer voters — but still a majority — have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton.

What's new here is the fact that a lot of voters don't like both candidates. Take a look at 2012. That year, just 5 percent of voters told us they had an unfavorable opinion of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. This year, nearly one in five don't like both of them.

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Trump is leading among those who dislike both candidates, but - perhaps not surprisingly - many are opting for someone other than one of the two major party candidates - in fact, these early poll results suggest that one quarter of those who don't like either candidate are voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.

This election has been marked by intense focus on character, with each campaign trying to paint the other candidate as unfit to serve as president due to a fundamental character flaw.

For the Trump campaign, the drumbeat has focused on whether Clinton is honest and trustworthy. His message stems in part from her long history as a lightning rod for conservative ire and is fueled by the on-again, off-again FBI inquiry into Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state, which roiled the final two weeks of the campaign.

Indeed, nearly six in 10 voters interviewed in NBC Exit Polls so far today say that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy. Slightly more than one-third say she is.

But views of Donald Trump's honesty are equally negative. Roughly a third of voters nationwide say Trump is honest and trustworthy; nearly two-thirds say that he is not.

Even among each candidate's own voters, about one-quarter say they don't think their candidate is honest.

Clinton and her surrogates on the campaign trail have spent much of the campaign raising questions about whether Trump has the right temperament to serve as president of the United States, particularly in times of crisis. If elected, Trump would be the first modern-era president with no prior experience in either elected office or military command. Trump's unfiltered and inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail have fueled questions about his judgment and temperament to handle the difficult crises that a president could face.

Clinton clearly comes out ahead with voters when it comes to questions of temperament. NBC News Exit Poll results show that a majority of voters so far today say Clinton has the right temperament to serve effectively as president.

But most voters have negative views of Trump's temperament - more than six in 10 among those interviewed thus far. Just 34 percent say he has the temperament to serve effectively as president.

Even among Trump's voters, about one-fourth question his temperament.

Early results from the NBC News Exit Poll show that about half of voters picked the economy as the top issue. Terrorism trailed, followed by foreign policy and immigration.

Among those who said the economy is most important, Clinton holds a solid lead.

Trump is leading among those who chose terrorism and immigration. Among the approximately one-fifth of voters who said that terrorism is the most important issue, Trump is trouncing Clinton by a margin of nearly 20 percentage points.

Clinton is leading among the relatively small number of voters who say foreign policy is most important.

According to early NBC News Exit Poll data, working class whites — identified here as those without a college degree — are indeed decisively for Trump by more than a two-to-one margin.

College-educated whites, by contrast, are dividing about evenly between Hillary Clinton and Trump in these early data. That is a dramatic departure from 2012, when Mitt Romney won the college-educated white vote by a full 14 points.

Digging one level deeper, we reach a perennial swing group — white women with college degrees. These women broke for Barack Obama in 2008 but tilted back for Mitt Romney in 2012. According to early exit poll data, Clinton has an 8-point lead among white women college graduates tonight.

This group of women reacted particularly strongly and negatively to the revelations about Trump's treatment of women. Fully 58 percent of college educated white women said that his treatment of women bothered them a lot, which compares to just 45 percent among working-class white women.

According to early results of the NBC News Exit Poll, most voters are confident that votes cast in their states today will be accurately counted. Donald Trump's voters are less confident than Hillary Clinton's voters that the count will be accurate, but even among them, 78 percent are at least somewhat confident.

Clinton voters feel more confident in the process. Nearly seven in 10 Clinton voters expressed complete confidence that votes counted in their states will correctly reflect voting activity today, and an additional two in 10 said they are "somewhat confident" about the vote count. Fewer than one in 10 Clinton voters lack confidence that votes being counted in their states will not be accurate.

For all the discussion of a rigged election, voters expressed about the same level of confidence as they did in 2008 — at least on this measure.

Early results from the NBC News exit polls today show a wide gap between supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the issue of whether trade with other countries helps or hurts the United States.

Reflecting Trump's harsh criticism of free trade agreements, roughly half of voters supporting the Republican nominee say that trade with other countries takes away American jobs. By contrast, about half of Clinton's supporters believe trade is a net plus for jobs in the U.S.

The depth of this partisan divide on trade is relatively new. Until recently, national surveys found few differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of trade. Over the past few decades, free trade agreements have generally enjoyed support from Democratic and Republican elites. Presidents from both parties have spearheaded the signing of new trade treaties, most prominently the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was favored by both Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton.

Most voters around the nation say they are bothered some or a lot by Trump's treatment of women, according to NBC Exit Poll results so far today.

About six in 10 women nationwide say they are bothered a lot by Trump's treatment of women, compared to less than half of men who say the same.

Clinton is the first woman nominee to lead one of the two major parties, and she clearly benefits from doubts about Trump, particularly when it comes to this issue. Trump sparred early on with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, saying she had "blood coming out her wherever" in an interview after a primary debate in which she questioned him about offensive statements he had made about women in the past.

Later, after the second general election debate, Trump came under fire for his behavior toward Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe who Trump called "Miss Eating Machine" and "Miss Housekeeping." The release of a videotape from 2005 capturing Trump's lewd comments about women in an unscripted moment raised new questions in the last weeks of the campaign about Trump's behavior. Several women came forward in the following days — some repeating allegations made years ago, before Trump entered politics — to accuse the Republican nominee of unwanted sexual contact. Trump has repeatedly denied all accusations against him.

The gender difference in feelings about Trump's treatment of women is critical because it occurs especially among independents. Fifty-six percent of independent women are bothered a lot by Trump's treatment of women, compared with 38 percent of independent men.

According to the NBC News Exit Poll in Florida, more than half of voters today hold unfavorable opinions of each of the major party candidates, though attitudes differ by race.

Overall, half of voters say they have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton and nearly six in 10 have an unfavorable opinion of Trump.

Blacks are the most likely to view Clinton favorably — nearly nine in 10 do — followed by just over half of Hispanics.

More than half of whites hold a favorable opinion of Trump, as do one-quarter of Hispanics. Just one in 10 blacks views Trump favorably.

One reason the election seems so close at this hour is that Donald Trump has been able to assemble key groups that Republican candidates depend on. One in particular are white evangelical voters, who are solidly in the Republican camp this year, despite a campaign focusing little on the social issues that have long cemented this group's loyalty to the G.O.P.

The NBC News Exit Poll shows Donald Trump winning about 80 percent of the votes of white evangelicals, about the same as Mitt Romney in 2012.

America's Catholic voters are sharply divided along the lines of ethnicity, results from today's NBC News Exit Poll show.

White Catholics appear to have broken heavily for Republican Donald Trump, who currently holds about a 20-point lead over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton with these voters. But exit polls show an even bigger gap among Latino Catholics, who are favoring Clinton by roughly 40 percentage points over Trump.

The split between white and Latino Catholics comes in the wake of a campaign in which Trump promised mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants and claimed a Mexican-American federal judge was biased against him because of his heritage. Still, Clinton's advantage among Hispanic Catholics is very similar to Obama's four years ago.

Exit polls indicate that Latinos are accounting for about one in five Catholics voting in the 2016 presidential election.

Third-party candidates have proven attractive to voters under age 30 this year, according to results from the NBC News Exit Poll. About half of those who voted for a third party went to Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson; the remainder went to Green Party candidate Jill Stein and scattered others.

Third-party votes appear to have slightly narrowed the advantage the Democrats have enjoyed in previous elections among 18-to-29-year-olds. Democrat Hillary Clinton's lead over Republican Donald Trump is substantial among these voters, but it is currently smaller than the impressive margins racked up by Barack Obama with young people in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

By contrast, it appears that the nation's older voters—those aged 65 or over—are remaining loyal to the major parties this year. Support for other candidates among this group is limited to just a few percentage points. In line with previous trends in seniors' support in presidential elections, Trump leads Clinton among these voters.

Nationally, Clinton is winning the women vote by more than a 10-point margin, but the woman vote is far from monolithic. A number of female voting groups are breaking for Donald Trump tonight and have helped propel him to victory in a number of battleground states.

White women overall are going for Trump by about 10 points, and white women who are middle age are going from Trump by nearly 20 points. We also see white Protestant women favoring Trump by a sizable 32-point margin. And women who describe themselves as conservative are going overwhelmingly for Trump, 78 percent to 18 percent.